


Battle Scars

by coolbreeze1



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-06
Updated: 2011-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:56:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreeze1/pseuds/coolbreeze1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While searching for a missing team on a war-torn world, Sheppard is kidnapped and put to work, forcing him to stretch his skills in order to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everybetty for the beta!

**Part 1**

It was easy to imagine that the shell of a city John was now kneeling in had once been majestic, full of gleaming high rises and millions of people living, working, eating, loving. There were glimpses here and there of what it had once been, but only if someone were really looking for them, and those hints were rapidly disappearing against the onslaught of endless guerilla warfare.

“Blue Team, report,” Sheppard barked into his radio. His knees were killing him, but he didn’t dare stand up to stretch. Ronon shifted next to him, scanning the ruined buildings.

“ _No movement here, sir,_ ” a voice whispered over the radio. Blue Team leader.

John pinched his nose against a blossoming headache. They’d been searching the city for Stackhouse’s team for three days now without luck. A distant explosion echoed through the crumbling skyscrapers, but John didn’t flinch. The explosions were almost constant, more background noise than anything else now. Ghosts and shadows moved past the windows of the surrounding buildings, but John didn’t react to them either. The city was full of the thin, ragged survivors camped out anywhere they could find, and most of them ran out of sight the second any of John’s troops appeared in the streets.

The ones who didn’t run were slightly problematic. They had weapons, but they were more of the sticks and rocks and knives variety than projectile weapons—at least that’s all they’d seen so far. The recon teams had pierced the black unknowns of this world, gathering an impressive amount of intel in a very short period of time and revealing a land torn apart by decades-long civil war. The war itself had long since been abandoned, but by then it was too late. Both sides had fought themselves to near oblivion, leaving only a small percentage of scattered, desperate humanity.

“Orange Team?”

“ _Got a gang moving east through the streets here, sir. Looks like they’re coming from a fight, not looking for one._ ”

“Stay out of sight,” John whispered back, automatically lowering his voice. He glanced around the pile of rubble he was kneeling behind and scanned the empty street in front of them. The sun was setting, casting purple shadows at the bases of the skeletal buildings.

The recon teams had also learned that the city had since been divided and occupied by gangs that were made up of the relatively stronger and healthier survivors of the city. Those gangs had become territorial in the last several years, and had the unfortunate habit of pissing on each other’s street corners.

“Purple Team, what’s happening at the Hole?”

“ _All quiet here, sir. Saw a couple of kids running along the far side but they didn’t stick around long._ ” Sergeant Mackey’s voice, unlike the others, came through loud and clear.

John grimaced at the thought of kids playing around the hole. The Hole. One of the recon teams had come up with that particular euphemism, a crater blast at the edge of the city that had turned into a body dump. In the three days since they’d arrived, a steady stream of survivors—both gang members and stragglers—had thrown their dead and their garbage into the Hole. They’d caught glimpses of dirty, malnourished children running through the debris, oblivious to the stench and the rodents and insects that hovered over that entire area. In fact, they’d caught glimpses of children everywhere, never more than two or three at a time, and all of them unfazed by the disaster that made up their lives.

“ _By the way, sir,_ ” Mackey said, dropping his voice to a whisper, “ _I thought we’d decided our name was Team Magenta, not Purple._ ”

Snickers and stifled grunts of laughter broke out around John, and he couldn’t help the grin that flit across his own face. Leave it to Mackey to break the tension with a wisecrack. John’s radio clicked twice, then Blue Team came across the line.

“ _Sir, if Purple Team is changing their name to Magenta, Blue Team respectively requests to change its name to Team Indigo._ ”

Shaking his head, John tapped his radio to cut off any more _requests._ “Tighten up,” he ordered but even he could hear the smile in his voice. “All teams pull back to base camp. We’re not getting any farther tonight. We’ll pick up again at first light.”

They would start the search again the next day, but John’s hopes of finding Stackhouse’s missing team alive and unharmed were dwindling. They had three jumpers on the ground back at their temporary base in the trees outside of the city limits, but the scanners had gone haywire almost as soon as they’d popped through the space gate. Whatever weapons had been used in the civil war had done a number on all of their equipment, though its effect on people seemed to be minimal now—as long as they didn’t stick around for more than a few years.

A few days was long enough. John signaled his team—consisting of himself, Ronon, Teyla, and three Marine sergeants—back the way they’d come, and they moved quickly through the streets. They were Black Team—Ronon’s choice. It hadn’t been very hard to talk Rodney into sitting this one out, though he’d acted a little hurt until he’d heard the mission involved camping out for an indeterminate number of days on the edge of a war zone. John smiled at the memory of the discussion. It had been the camping out part more than the war zone part that had been the most persuasive.

A distant blast brought his attention back to the current situation. The sun was still up, but the shadows were growing long by the time they hit the outskirts of the city. Purple Team, with Mackey leading the way, reached the tree line at the same time as Sheppard’s team, and the sergeant gave John a quick wave. Blue and Orange Teams had a longer trek, but they too would reach safety before it was too dark.

John turned his full attention to the sergeant, grinning. “Mackey, if I hear one more request to change—”

“ _Sir! Under fire—I’m under fire!_ ”

The frantic voice cut through everyone, and John saw both teams freeze in their tracks, their knuckles whitening as they flexed their hands more tightly around their weapons.

“Who is this?” John called out. He recognized the voice, vaguely, but couldn’t pin a face to it.

“ _Lieutenant Glazner, sir._ One of the gangs spotted me. I can see them fanning out.”

“Where are you, Glazner?”

The spitfire of crude weapons sounded over the radio and John turned back toward the city instinctively. “Keep your head down, Glazner. We’re on our way to you. What’s your position?”

“ _Sir, they’ve got projectile weapons. They’re—_ ”

His voice cut out abruptly and John felt his gut tighten in dread. Glazner was a recon man, damn good at his job but not invisible. Or invincible.

“Glazner?” He forced his voice to stay level, fighting the urge to scream at the man to respond.

After a long pause, a ragged voice came through again. “ _Hit…I’m hit…can’t move…_ ”

“Lieutenant, where are you?” John asked again. He wracked his brain, trying to remember exactly which direction the man had moved out that morning. The recon group had spread out, operating in one-man teams. It was easier to move through the city that way, easier to escape notice or detection.

“ _Near…Three Rings…right below…_ ”

Three Rings—the name they’d given three round buildings, one right next to the other. John had seen them from the jumper when they’d flown over the city that morning and planned the day’s search patterns. He nodded to himself then looked up at the two teams standing in a loose semi-circle around him.

“Hang on, Lieutenant.” He let go of his radio and pointed at Mackey. “Get Purple Team back to base, make sure the other teams get there, too. Black Team will take this one.” He keyed his radio again. “Base, this is Sheppard. We need a medic—”

“Here, sir.”

The gruff voice sounded behind him, and John turned to see Corporal Paulsen running toward them from the trees. Paulsen was a huge man, and one of the best medics John had ever met—the next best thing to an actual medical doctor in the field. John signaled him forward, and they took off at a run back toward the city.

Paulsen caught up to John and ran alongside him, both hands wrapped around the straps of the duffel bag slung over his back. The first aid kits most field medics carried were at least half the size of Paulsen’s but the man refused to bring out anything smaller. John hadn’t argued; the man was fit enough to carry half the infirmary on his back, and if that’s what he needed to save John’s men, John sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him otherwise.

The top floors of the Three Rings appeared in the distance a few minutes later, and Black Team moved without the need for verbal communication. They didn’t know exactly where Lieutenant Glazner was, but they would find him. John felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end as adrenaline shot through him.

It was light enough still to see people moving through the streets and behind the dark, blown-out windows of the buildings, but most appeared to be running for cover, moving away from the fight. John’s team split up into pairs and spread out through the neighborhood, searching for their man on the ground. Paulsen stuck with John, and the two of them jogged down an alley. The occasional blast of a rifle echoed around them, but the shots were at least a block away from them.

John ran toward it. Whoever was shooting knew where the lieutenant was and would lead John’s team right to him. Paulsen didn’t say a word, as intent on reaching the injured Marine as everyone else. At the next corner, John paused, ducked his head around the side of the building in a quick sweep, then pulled back behind the cover of the wall. No shots erupted at his appearance, and he sighed in relief.

“Glazner is about halfway down that block,” John whispered. “Left side, against the building. There’s a pile of rocks in front of him, and a hole in the wall about ten feet up, not quite directly above him.”

Paulsen nodded, and John let the man slide past him to glance down the street and get his bearings. John radioed Glazner’s position to his other team members, then moved back to the corner.

A drumbeat of weapons fire echoed around him, and he flinched before he realized the sound was not directed at them. It was close, though, and he thought suddenly of the others moving along the streets around him.

“Black Team, report!” he whispered, forcing himself to keep a low volume. He glanced around the wall and spotted Glazner again, unmoving. His street was deathly still.

“ _Colonel,_ ” one of his men called out over the radio, breathless. “ _We’re under fire from all sides. We managed to take cover but we are pinned down at the moment._ ”

“Where are they shooting from?”

“ _Second floor. Can’t get a bead on them._ ”

“ _Sheppard_ ,” Ronon piped up. “ _Teyla and I can circle around to their position, maybe give them an opening to pull back_.”

“Colonel,” Paulsen whispered, jerking his head down the street.

John glanced over at Glazner and could just see the man’s fist pounding against the cracked cement street. Paulsen was seconds from running to the injured Marine, to hell with the consequences. John scanned the second floor windows, gaping black holes that disappeared into nothing. He forced himself to study each visible window, then tapped his radio when he saw no hint of movement.

“Do it,” he ordered, nodding at Ronon’s brief acknowledgement. “The rest of you stay under cover. Glazner is in the clear for now. As soon as we get him, we’ll make our way back to you and we pull out together.”

Another hail of bullets echoed through the twilight, the sound resonating in his ear from his radio and drowning out the chorus of _yes, sirs._ With a deep breath, he raised his P90 and braced himself, catching Paulsen’s eyes and watching as the medic tensed. Seconds later, they darted into the street, and a minute after that, they reached Glazner’s side. No explosions went off; no gunfire peppered the street. The ease with which they’d managed to get to their man was strangely anti-climatic.

John dropped to his knees, taking in Glazner’s pale face scrunched up in pain. “Sleeping on the job again, Lieutenant? If you wanted a vacation, all you had to do was ask.”

A brief smile fluttered across Glazner’s face before dropping back into a grimace. Paulsen was on his other side, his medical bag open next to him. John glanced up and down the street, eyes scanning the dark shadows for any possible attackers, but he still saw no one. When he looked back at Glazner, he saw the lieutenant’s hands red with blood. Paulsen was pulling them away from his gut, and John scowled at the blood covering the dark uniform.

“Sir, I need your help,” Paulsen said, his voice low but intense.

John nodded and let go of his P90, letting it hang from the clip on his vest. Paulsen packed the lieutenant’s wound with bandages, then had John apply pressure. Glazner threw his head back with a moan, the agony of the sound piercing John’s chest.

“Hang on, Lieutenant. We’ll have you fixed up in no time,” Paulsen said, squeezing the Marine’s shoulder. He bent over his bag and began digging through its contents.

“Can’t… can’t feel… legs…” Glazner gasped.

John glanced down in surprise, feeling dread creep into his gut.

Paulsen jerked up at the lieutenant’s words but he kept his face neutral. “No worries, LT.”

Another volley of gunshots sounded from a few blocks away and John scanned the street again. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he pressed harder against the bandages on Glazner’s stomach, ignoring the man’s whimpering response.

“Got a stretcher in there?” John asked, nodding toward the bag.

“Yes, sir,” Paulsen answered. He pulled out an IV kit and set the saline bag on Glazner’s chest.

John’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he should have known better. Paulsen’s medic bag was the size of a duffel suitcase. Of course he had a collapsible stretcher. The Corporal dug his hand under Glazner’s body and frowned, meeting John’s gaze.

“No exit wound, sir. We’re going to have to—”

John felt the bullet before he heard it, a vibrating buzz next to his ear and a blast of hot air as it flew past his cheek, missing him by less than half an inch. He heard the dull thud of the bullet striking flesh but didn’t see it actually hit Paulsen. He looked up in time to see the medic pitch backward, dead before he hit the ground.

“Paulsen! Dammit!” John cried out. He snapped his head around looking for the source of the weapon’s fire and scrambled over Glazner. The lieutenant was only barely conscious, oblivious to the Marine lying dead next to him.

John didn’t bother searching for a pulse on the medic. The bullet had struck him in the neck, killing him instantly. He turned back to Glazner, taking in the blood still oozing from his wound. He would need help getting him out of here.

“Don’t move!”

John jerked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard anyone approach. A young man appeared in front of him, sliding out of the shadows, stringy dark hair pushed back behind his ears. He held a rifle loosely in both hands, the barrel not quite pointing directly at him. John kept his eyes on the man in front of him and moved his hand as slowly as possible toward the .45 holstered at his hip.

“He said, don’t move,” another voice hissed.

John cringed at the voice inches behind him, then flinched again when the end of a cold metal barrel was pressed against the back of his head. He felt his cheeks flush—anger, embarrassment, fear. Some combination of all three. He hadn’t heard any of them approach when he should have been hyper-aware, should have picked up on… something. Given Paulsen a chance to duck for cover, at least. He raised his hands, palms out in the most non-threatening gesture he could think of.

“What do you want?” John asked, and he was grateful that his voice sounded calm.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” the man in front of him said.

 _Like hell_ , John thought. He glared at him until he caught a flash of movement off to his side, and three more gang members appeared, taking up a position directly behind the man with the long rifle.

“This man is hurt,” John said, signaling Glazner with one hand. “I need to stop the bleeding.” John lowered one hand and pressed it against the red bandages on the lieutenant’s gut. He felt relief seep through him when Glazner groaned. He was still alive. There was still a chance to save him.

“You can help him?” Rifle Man asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s that bag on his chest?”

John glanced down. “It’s a saline bag. He’s bleeding heavily—I need to start an IV to get his blood pressure up.” He started dropping his other hand, but Rifle Man jerked the barrel of his weapon until it was pointing at John’s face. The gunman behind him poked him hard in the head.

“No one said you could move,” the gunman behind him growled. His voice was a little high-pitched and whiny, and John imagined a kid just a few years past puberty.

“You a giver then?” Rifle Man asked.

“A what?”

“A giver. Caregiver—a healer.”

John’s mind raced. The young men behind Rifle Man were glancing at each other, and beneath their tough exteriors, John saw them throwing furtive, desperate glances at each other. _Did they need a doctor? Is that what they were asking him?_

“I’m… uh… I’m trained…”

The kid behind him jabbed him in the head again. “He’s no giver, Ulam. I say we kill him and ask his friends.”

“Shut it, Biggie,” Rifle Man—Ulam—snapped. He pointed to Paulsen, then John. “They came straight for their injured man. Course he’s a giver.” He turned to John, squatting down to look him in the eye. “Right?”

The question was loaded. John could hear it. If he told them he was a giver, he lived at least a few more minutes. If not, he would be laid out next to Paulsen before he could blink, and then Glazner would have no chance whatsoever.

“Yes,” John said. _What the hell was he getting himself into?_

“That your stuff?” Ulam asked. At John’s nod, he ordered two of the guys behind him to grab him and the medic bag. “Finish the other one, Biggie.”

John looked down in alarm at Glazner. _Oh, hell no._ Glazner was unconscious now, his face slick with sweat and taking on a gray tinge. If he was breathing, it was too shallow for John to see. “He’s already dead,” John barked, hoping it wasn’t true. Glazner still had a chance. If Black Team could reach him fast enough, they could get the lieutenant back to the relative safety of base camp, and from there to Atlantis.

Glazner looked convincingly dead, enough so that Biggie didn’t shoot him. He stepped over Paulsen and John caught his first glimpse of him. He hadn’t been far off on guessing his age. The kid looked like he was no more than seventeen or eighteen, thin as a rail with a face scarred by acne. He had a small revolver in one hand that he tucked into the waistband of his pants.

The two gang members grabbed John by the arms, and John struggled just enough to toss the IV kit and saline bag on Glazner’s chest back into the medic bag. He zipped it up as he was jerked to his feet, and freed himself of the two strongmen’s grasp long enough to swing the bag onto his back.

“Let’s go,” Ulam ordered.

John glanced back one last time, hoping to see some sign from Glazner that he was still alive, but the injured man disappeared behind a mound of rocks and debris as John was shoved forward, deeper into the ravaged city.

* * *

The gang of boys had marched him less than a block down the street before throwing the blindfold on, almost as an afterthought. John hadn’t resisted. Ulam had proven far too effective with his rifle already. But the blindfold was only marginally useful. John had flown over the city and studied its layout enough times in the last three days that even dragged through the streets with a piece of cloth tied around his eyes, he still had a pretty good idea of where he was at, and he half hoped that whoever had grabbed him had also grabbed the missing team. It would be worth being kidnapped and held as a hostage if Stackhouse and his men were found in the end.

The air shifted around him, and the stench of unwashed bodies and urine amplified. He grit his teeth against the sudden urge to gag. He was inside one of the buildings and being pushed along what sounded like a narrow hallway. At the stairs, he tripped and would have landed face first if the two thugs didn’t still have a hold of his arms.

“Think you can take the blindfold off now?” he asked as they pulled him, stumbling, up the stairs.

No one said anything, but at the next landing, he felt a tug against the fabric and then the blindfold was ripped off. John blinked at the shadowy stairwell but Ulam and his gang didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. They pulled him up another five flights before shoving him out into a hallway.

The smell was marginally better on this floor, or John had just gotten used to it. He scanned the closed doorways and dirty walls, eyes raking through the trash swept to the sides for something he might be able to use later. Ulam led the way down the hall, his rifle swinging in one hand as he walked. The skinny kid—Biggie—walked directly behind him, and kept shooting glares at John over his shoulder.

At the end of the hall, Ulam knocked once, using his entire forearm. The door flew open a second later and another man stuck his head out. He had short dark hair and thick shoulders, and a thin scar running alongside his temple and curling under his eye.

“Found a giver,” Ulam said, and by the tone of his voice, John half expected him to add a sir at the end.

The man said nothing, just waved them inside. As John was pushed through the door, he looked around quickly, taking in as many details as he could. He’d expected to find an apartment, but it was a single, large room. There was ratty couch against one wall and a table at the center, covered in papers. Whatever this room had once been used for had long since been lost.

The man who’d answered the door spun around and looked John up and down, and John realized he was about as much a man as Biggie was, at least age-wise. Boys, all of them. Boys with guns and knives and clubs, but still boys. Ulam had looked older outside, in the streets, swinging his rifle around, but in here he looked as young as the others.

“Pleased to meet you,” John said when no one spoke for several long seconds.

The young man—obviously the leader by the way the others were reacting to him—swung his arm toward John’s face, catching John on the cheek with the back of his hand. He moved so fast that John had no time to react or brace himself, and his head snapped to the side, his cheek erupting in a burning sting.

“He’s a giver?” the man… boy… whatever… asked. “He don’t look it.”

“We shot one of his men,” Ulam answered. “He was trying to fix him.”

“You shot _two_ of my men,” John said icily.

This time it was Ulam who swung toward him, planting the butt of his rifle into John’s gut. John’s breath whooshed out of him in a rush as his knees folded beneath him. The two thugs on either side of him tightened their grips, their fingers digging painfully into his arms as they kept him on his feet.

“You talk too much, filth,” the leader said, moving until he was right in John’s face. John blinked at the spit that flew out of the boy’s mouth but didn’t turn away.

“Hesh, he’s got loads of caregiver equipment in his bag,” Ulam said. “We saw it on the street.”

“Hesh, is it?” John asked. “My name’s John.”

Hesh swung at John’s face again, and John might have dodged had it not been for his two friends latched to his arms. The punch caught him squarely in the jaw, and he saw a flash of white at the impact. He blinked against sudden tears just in time to see Hesh jump back then forward again, burying his fist into John’s stomach and solar plexus twice.

John moaned, his legs giving out beneath him again. Nothing Hesh’s two thugs did could keep him standing this time, and they let him drop to the floor, his knees banging against solid tile. He tasted iron in his mouth, and he tried to spit the blood out but ended up dribbling it down his chin instead. His stomach was cramping, and he was panting to catch his breath.

Hesh stepped back, and John lifted his head. His vision was swimming. Hesh and his gang doubled then tripled in number before coalescing back into one.

“What do you want?” John asked. He’d meant to sound commanding, but his voice came out rough and hoarse, and he swallowed a mouthful of blood.

“We need a giver,” Hesh answered. “You’ll help, or you’re no use to us.”

He waited, looking at John expectantly. When his hand curled into another fist, John nodded, hoping that was the response the gang leader was looking for. Hesh moved in anyway, and John braced himself for another punch. Instead, he felt hands tugging at his vest and radio, stripping him of all weapons and equipment. The medic bag was flung to the side and searched hastily, then zipped up again.

John was left with only his black t-shirt, pants, and boots. The young man obviously knew how to search for hidden weapons. He’d even taken the small knife stashed in his boot. John sighed—his situation hadn’t been great to begin with, but it was growing worse, and there’d been no sign of Stackhouse’s team here yet. He flashed to Glazner, dying, and Paulsen, dead, back on the streets, but he pushed those thoughts aside, forcing himself to remain calm.

Hesh jerked his head to the side. “Take him to Tayven.”

“Wait!” John called out. “You kidnap my other team, too?”

Hesh frowned, confusion sweeping across his face for a moment before he scowled in anger. He didn’t answer, just jerked his head toward door, but the expression had been enough. He’d had no idea what John was talking about.

 _Great_ , he thought. Not only was his missing team still missing, he was gone too. Thug One and Thug Two dragged him out into the hall, moving back toward the stairwell. They passed two doors before he was finally able to get his feet back under him. They stopped in front of the next door, and Thug One let go of his arm to open it.

This was his chance to make a run for it. The hallway was empty besides the two of them, and both his guards were distracted, but John’s head was still ringing from Hesh’s punch to his jaw. He blinked, realizing he had the chance to escape about a half second before he was pulled into the room.

The room was smaller and darker than the other one, lit only by a tall lantern sitting on a narrow dresser on one side of the room. There were no windows, and the foul stench of body odor was almost a visible cloud. A bed sat against one wall, a dusty sofa chair sitting at its foot.

“That’s Tayven,” Thug Two said, gesturing toward the bed. They shoved John forward and tossed the medic bag in after him, then slammed the door the shut. The lock clicked shut and the sound of their footsteps disappeared back toward Hesh’s room.

John sank into the chair. His legs were shaking, and he sucked in a deep breath. He glanced at the bed and saw a pile of dirty blankets at the center. Unless Tayven was under the bed, the room appeared to be empty. He took a second to take stock of himself. His head was throbbing, but his sight had returned to normal. No more double and triple vision. The bruise along his jaw was already swelling but he opened and closed his mouth a few times, testing it out.

Nothing broken so far. His stomach was only marginally less painful than his head, and he leaned back into the chair slowly. He fingered his ribs, relieved when none of them screamed in agony at his poking. Maybe he would get through this. They seemed to need him alive for something; he just hoped to God it wasn’t surgery. He could feign being a “giver” to a point, but US military medical training—even as much as he’d had—would only take him so far.

He glanced around the room, wondering when Tayven would show up. Hesh had seemed like the leader in the room, but Tayven could be the big boss. He pushed himself out of the chair, noting with relief the lack of dizziness or lightheadedness. The narrow dresser in front of him looked old, its drawers and sides scratched and stained.

“Give me something good,” he muttered as he opened the top drawer. Two small pebbles rolled along the bottom. The second drawer was empty, and the third held a handful of paper with a script John didn’t recognized. They looked vaguely like letters, but the pages were old and stained yellow. The last drawer was equally as disappointing, holding a broken picture frame without either a picture or the glass that must of have held the picture in.

“Now glass would have been useful,” John said, glancing around the room. He turned toward the door then froze as an image caught in his peripheral vision.

A hand.

He twisted slowly, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. _That’s Tayven,_ the guard had said and he’d pointed to the bed. John searched the pile of dirty blankets again, his eyes latching onto thin fingers poking out the top.

“Tayven?”

He got no response, not even a twitch of a finger, but he hadn’t really expected it. He reached out and pulled the blanket away from the bed, careful to keep his distance from any possible attackers underneath the covers.

“Oh, shit,” he breathed out.

A child lay in the center of the bed, sinking toward the floor in the center of the old mattress. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch at all to suddenly being exposed. He was curled up on his side, facing John, one arm stretched out above him to where the hand had poked out from under the edge of the blanket.

The stench was overwhelming, and John grimaced, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth and nose involuntarily. How had he not noticed this before? The blanket in his other hand reeked just as badly, and he tossed it toward the door. He studied the child a few more seconds, picking out pale skin and dark sunken eyes. The boy could have been anywhere from age eight to twelve, obviously malnourished and sick.

But not dead. John breathed a sigh of relief at the slight rise and fall of the boy’s chest. He moved closer, squatting down until he was eye-level with the child.

“Tayven?”

He reached a hand out and pressed his fingers against the boy’s forehead. The skin radiated heat. He had the medical bag Paulsen had packed, which probably included a reference manual of some sort, and as a special forces pilot, he’d had years of training in field medicine. John pulled his hand away and dragged it across his face. He’d treated soldiers in the field when the situation had called for it, but not all that often. Treating a seriously sick child was beginning to feel like a whole different ballgame.

But what choice did he have? This kid meant something to Hesh or one of the others in the gang, and John’s failure to help Tayven could very likely end in both of their deaths. He reached another hand out and started to push the boy onto his back.

His throat seized and he jerked away from the bed. In a split second, he’d seen a small insect scamper across the boy’s skin and disappear under the shirt. John raised the back of his hand to his mouth, the smell doubling and causing his stomach to churn. Behind him, he heard footsteps echoing doing the hall, growing louder as they approached the door.

John stood and swung around just as the door flew open and Hesh barged in, wielding a long, machete-sized knife in one hand. The young leader’s eyes widened at Tayven laying without covers on the bed. He turned to John, his expression hardening.

“Can you fix him?”

“What’s wrong with him?” John demanded, dropping his hands to his side and staring Hesh down.

“He’s sick.”

“With what? Why is he sick? What made him sick? How long has he been like this?”

Hesh had been staring at Tayven, but he snapped his head toward John, his eyes flashing. “You’re the giver. You tell me.”

John bit his lip, resisting the urge to snap back at him. He took a calming breath and held his hands out to his side. “I need more time to examine him, but the more you can tell me about his illness, the better chance I have of helping him.”

Hesh lashed out with his empty hand, catching John off guard for a second time with lightning fast reflexes. John caught the fist in the center of his chest and he stumbled backward against the blow.

“Goddammit!” John cursed, rubbing his hand against his breastbone. “Stop doing that!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Hesh screamed back.

The door to the room suddenly flew open, and John’s friends—Thug One and Thug Two—appeared in the doorway. They were armed now with short clubs, and they held them up menacingly as they stepped into the room.

“Get back,” Hesh snarled at them. “I got this.”

Their reaction was instantaneous and they retreated back into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him. John waited, watching Hesh turn back to Tayven. The gang leader stepped toward the child, grief and fear replacing the anger for a brief moment.

“Is he your son?” John asked quietly.

Hesh turned toward him, anger simmering in his dark eyes. “My brother.”

“How long has he been sick?”

Hesh glanced down at the boy. “A couple days, maybe three. He was fine, he went to bed, then he woke up the next morning with burning skin. Sometimes he shakes like he’s cold, and he won’t eat.”

John scratched his cheek, his mind racing. He had no clue what was wrong with this kid, but he could tell just by looking at him that it was serious, and that he probably needed more than what John was capable of giving.

 _Bringing this kid back to Atlantis, though…_ John shook his head. That wasn’t going to happen. This was one sick kid in a burned out city filled with who knew how many other people in just as much need.

“You can’t help him?”

Hesh’s high-strung voice dragged John out of his thoughts, and he took a step back as the gang leader raised his machete knife.

“I’ll do what I can,” John answered, “but you have to listen to me. You have to do what I say.”

Hesh’s eyes narrowed, but he dropped the machete a second later and pointed at his brother. “Fix him.”

“I’ll try, but he’s really sick.”

“No, you fix him or you die,” Hesh hissed back.

John stifled another sigh and nodded his head. “Okay, fine.”

“You lie to me and I’ll cut you deep.”

“I got it,” John snapped, biting his lip when Hesh’s eyes flashed in anger. _Damn, this guy is volatile._ He’d have to tread carefully around him. “Look, he’s got bugs all over him. The first thing we need to do is get him cleaned up.”

“We all got bugs.”

“But he’s sick. I need water—hot water—and any clean sheets or blankets you have around here. Soap as well. Have you got those?”

Hesh was fuming, and looked on the verge of coming at John with the machete anyway, but at the last second, his eyes slid toward Tayven, and he gave a stiff nod. “We got water but no blankets, no soap.”

“Okay, fine. I can work with that,” John answered.

Hesh backed out of the room, slamming the door shut hard enough that dust rained down on him and Tayven from the ceiling. He heard orders being yelled outside the door for hot water, and footsteps pounding down the hallway. He leaned over and hefted the large medic bag onto the chair, unzipping it and studying the vast array of equipment and supplies.

“Okay, kid. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

* * *

 **Part 2**

Even with a mask, gloves, and breathing through his mouth, cleaning Tayven was an exercise in hell. The smell was overwhelming, and the sight of the bugs burrowing into the kid’s hair and under his clothing was threatening to send John skittering across to the other side of the room every few seconds. He’d seen a lot of desperate situations in his life in the military, but this one was rapidly earning its spot at the top of the list.

Paulsen had at least a dozen emergency blankets. They were small when they were folded up and packaged, making them easy to fill small gaps in the bag. He spread two of them on the bed, knowing the bugs were likely as deeply infested in the mattress, then laid Tayven on top and stripped him of his dirty, ragged clothes. The medical bag had a number of packets of powdered soap as well. As soon as the bucket of hot water arrived, John began washing the kid as well as he could.

It was all he could do to not to gag at the sight of the insects. Tayven was infected head to toe with body lice and head lice—at least this world’s version of the insects—and his skin was covered in rashes, some areas bad enough that they’d broken out into open sores. The boy’s hair was long, almost to his shoulders, and in the end, John ended up cutting it as close to the scalp as he could, then scrubbing his fingers through the remainder in order to get rid of both the live bugs and the eggs.

Even then, he wasn’t sure he’d gotten all of them, but it was a drastic improvement. By the time he was finished, he’d gone through six pairs of gloves and trashed the first two emergency blankets, spreading four more out on the bed. Tayven didn’t react to John’s manhandling or scrubbing, and his skin burned under John’s touch. He looked worse with the shaved head as well, his eyes and cheeks gaping hollows in his thin face.

He treated the open sores next with a tube of antibiotic cream then spread another blanket over Tayven. He grabbed the boy’s clothes and the dirty blanket he’d tossed to the corner of the room, balling them and one of the discarded emergency blankets up and tying the other blanket around it. The hallway outside had been quiet since the water had arrived. John grabbed the door handle, pulling and twisting it, and expecting it to be locked. When it swung open immediately, he stepped back in surprise. Thug One appeared, holding his club up and bracing himself for a fight.

John thrust the bundle of dirty, bug-infested material at the young guard. “Get rid of these. Burn them,” he ordered. He dropped the bundle at Thug One’s feet and slammed the door before he could answer.

He turned back toward Tayven, and the sight of the sick child sent a rattling shakiness through him. He dropped to the chair, shifting the duffel bag to the end of the bed so that he had room to just sit and gather his thoughts for a moment. He stripped off the latest pair of gloves and pulled his mask down, then leaned forward to rest his head in his hands.

He knew a lot about field medicine. The Air Force didn’t hold back when it came to training their pilots, particularly in John’s case with the types of missions he’d frequently found himself flying over the years. But that was intellectual knowledge. Staring at Tayven now, John fought back a wave of emotions. What if he made things worse for this kid? What if he treated him incorrectly and made him sicker? What if Tayven died as a direct result of John’s actions?

He shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. This kid was already dying. He took a deep breath and tried to focus his thoughts. An image of Beckett rose up in his mind, and while John had noticed the efficiency and decisiveness with which the doctor had tackled medical emergencies in the past, he’d never fully appreciated the ramifications of that until now.

“What do I do, Doc? What do I do?” he muttered, and part of him wished Beckett would suddenly appear in the room.

One thing at a time. Tayven was severely dehydrated, so John dug out an IV kit and saline bag, cursing himself for not doing this first. He donned another pair of gloves and slid his mask back over his mouth, then tried to ignore the way his fingers were shaking as he attempted to find a vein. It was harder—much harder—than it had been the few other times he’d had to do it, but he finally got the IV started. He set the bag up on the dresser next to the bed, then dug through the medical duffel again.

Medicine. That should be the next step. The pre-filled syringes were clearly marked, and John read through the directions three times before pulling out one of the broad spectrum antibiotic ones. He administered it through the IV, quickly, before he changed his mind.

Next step. He tapped his fingers against his knee for a second. The next step would be… would be…

“Come on, Doc, talk to me.”

This time, his imagination briefly flirted with a scenario where Beckett came to the planet and got himself kidnapped by Hesh and his gang, finally showing up in Tayven’s room. With a grunt, he shook his head, banishing the thought. This was not helping Tayven.

“Think, John. Use your head.” He stared at the boy again and watched the rapid rise and fall of the chest.

Breathing, heart rate? He dug through the bag again and pulled out a stethoscope. Relief rushed through him when he also found a thick manual. Thank God Paulsen had thought to pack that. He flipped through it, scanning the contents until he found the page he thought he needed. Hesitating for only a few seconds, he slid to his knees until he was kneeling next to the bed. He fitted the stethoscope into his ears and pulled the blanket covering Tayven down to the boy’s waist, then reached forward with the chestpiece.

He paused, remembering how Beckett would rub the metal disc against his palm to warm it up. John did that, frowning at the sound of friction that made its way up the eartubes, then gently pressed the disc against the boy’s chest. If he was hoping for some kind of reaction, he was disappointed. Tayven didn’t respond to having his heart listened to, just as he hadn’t reacted to anything else.

John listened to the heart for several minutes, clinging to the rapid thumping in his ears. It was too fast, but the kid was feverish. Was that normal? He closed his eyes, his mind racing through information he’d learned and shelved, never expecting to have to use it in quite this way. Field medicine was all about doing just enough to keep the person alive until you reached someone more qualified to take over, and John’s experience had dealt more often with injuries than illness. He stared down at the manual for another second as his thoughts raced. He thought that was right. High fever usually meant increased heart rate. He moved the stethoscope around on Tayven’s chest, listening to the breath sounds.

Footsteps pounded past the door, and John froze, but whoever was outside kept on walking. He felt his cheeks suddenly flush with heat, remembering how he’d dressed up as a zombie doctor for Halloween his freshman year of college. He felt as much like a phony doctor now as he had then. He pushed away the discomfort and continued listening to Tayven’s lungs, straining to hear what he was supposed to hear. Or not hear. He knew what he’d been told to listen for, but trying to distinguish it from what he was actually hearing was a different story.

Tayven was breathing fast, and John could hear the air moving through his lungs—louder in some places than others. He didn’t sound congested, but the breathing sounded… thicker… than he imagined it should be. He sat back with a sigh. He should probably check blood pressure, take the kid’s temperature, make sure his body was getting enough oxygen.

 _Write this down._ The thought flashed his mind and he cursed under his breath. All the time he’d spent in the infirmary, doctors and nurses wrote every little thing down religiously. He flipped to the back of the manual and saw the last page was blank, so he ripped it out. In the side pocket of the duffel bag, he found a pen and he jotted down meticulous notes of what he’d found and done so far.

Nearly an hour later, John sat back in the chair, exhausted. Tayven looked a little better, less pale with his cheeks flushed pink, but he hadn’t moved any closer to consciousness. John glanced at his watch, surprised at the late hour and his stomach grumbled automatically. The day had already been long, but it was well past midnight now. He’d discovered a supply of powerbars in another pocket of the duffel, and he downed two of them quickly.

Speaking of food, Tayven was in dire need of it. Hesh had said he hadn’t eaten since he’d grown sick, or he’d vomited when he’d tried to eat. John tried to remember his exact words, but his head was starting to pound from stress and fatigue. Maybe with a bit more fluids, the boy would rouse enough to eat something. John let his head fall into his hand and closed his eyes. He was exhausted…

He jerked awake suddenly, ears straining for what had woken him up, but he heard nothing. The room was deathly still. He turned immediately toward Tayven, his heart seizing in his chest, but the boy looked the same. He was still breathing, still alive. In fact, he looked like he’d shifted a little, flopping one arm across his stomach.

Maybe that was what had woken John up. He scrubbed at his eyes, feeling dry grittiness under his lids. He hadn’t slept for long. A couple of hours at the most. He glanced at his watch and noted it was now just past 3 a.m. The IV bag still had about a quarter of its solution left, so John left it alone. He ran through the other checks, though, writing the results down on his makeshift chart.

When he was done, he glanced at the door. It had been unlocked before but guarded. Were they still there? He was surprised no one had come to check on him. He squatted down to the bag and dug through it until he found a small case carrying a half dozen scalpel knives of different sizes and picked out the largest one.

This was the dead time, when most people were deep asleep, and those who weren’t wished they were. As far as he could tell, the hall outside had been quiet for hours. If he was going to escape, now was the time to do it. John crept to the door and pressed his ear against the panel, holding his breath as he listened for any sound. After a few minutes, he stepped back and grasped the handle.

He glanced back at Tayven and felt guilt claw at his chest. The kid really did look better than when he’d first arrived, but that didn’t mean much. That could be a temporary bounce back, and then what? Then Hesh took out his grief and anger by bashing John’s head in. John clenched his jaw. He could get out of here, back to his people, and then maybe return with more support, more supplies. An _actual_ doctor.

He nodded to himself. Tayven’s best chance was for John to escape, but the guilt at leaving the boy alone wouldn’t stay squelched. With a huff, he crossed the room and grabbed his page of notes, stuffing it in his pocket. Now when he returned to Atlantis, he had a little more information to give Beckett for when they came back.

At the last second, John extinguished the lantern on the dresser, plunging the room into darkness. He moved slowly to the door, acutely aware of every scrape of his feet against the floor. The door was still unlocked, and he opened it slowly. When neither Thug One nor Thug Two appeared, he leaned out into the hallway, scanning the darkness. Candles had been set on the floor at ten feet intervals, casting just enough light so that he would be able to pick his way through the trash without stepping on anything that would make any noise.

He waited a few seconds more, letting his eyes adjust, but no one yelled out at his sudden appearance. At the end of the hallway, near the stairwell, he could just make out the silhouette of a young man leaning against the wall, facing away from him. The guy was smoking, and in the red glow of his cigarette, John recognized the boy the others had called Biggie.

He’d learned a trick or two hanging out with both Ronon and Teyla, and he managed to walk the short distance down the hall without making a sound. Biggie moved just enough to raise and drop his cigarette, but he never once looked back at John’s approach. John felt adrenaline pump through him, his senses reaching out around him and the hair on his arms standing on end.

Biggie suddenly threw his cigarette butt to the ground, smashing it with his foot. John tensed, raising his scalpel, but before he could take another step, he felt a cold metal barrel press against his neck.

“Don’t think so, giver,” Ulam spat behind him.

John cringed, grateful for the darkness as his cheeks flushed with embarrassment at how easily Ulam had caught him. Again. How had he not heard anyone sneaking up behind him?

“You a foolish giver, eh? Thought givers were smart up here,” Biggie crowed, tapping his finger against his temple. In the flickering candlelight, he danced in front of John, bouncing from foot to foot and riding his own wave of adrenaline. “I heard you coming the second you opened that door. We knew you were gonna make a run sometime tonight. Knew it.”

The rifle pressing against his neck disappeared. John heard a whistling sound near his head, and then the rifle crashed against his arm. The scalpel clattered to the floor as his hand flashed first with pain, then numbness. He slammed his jaw shut, intent on not making a sound and giving these guys any more satisfaction at how easily they’d caught him.

 _Dammit, John,_ he cursed himself. _Get it together_. He’d underestimated them—saw kids when he should have seen soldiers. They might not have gone through any formal military training, but he’d seen the streets they were living in, knew what kind of lives they’d had to live to survive this long. Even pretending to be a giver might not be enough to keep himself alive now.

Ulam grabbed his uninjured arm, jerking John off balance, and John instinctively curled his right arm into his chest, cradling it. It was still numb. The rifle had caught his forearm right below the elbow, and no amount of mental coaxing could get his fingers to curl into a fist. His arm was a dead weight.

Biggie bounced ahead of them, kicking at a door until Thug One and Thug Two emerged, looking half-asleep. Farther down the hallway, another door flipped open, spilling bright light into the corridor, and a dark figure stepped out.

Hesh. The two thugs took Ulam’s place, each one latching onto one of John’s arms. They dragged him to Tayven’s door, then stopped. Hesh was striding toward them, the shadows flickering across his face making him look much older and very angry.

“He tried to run, Hesh. Ulam and me, we caught him sneaking.”

“Shut it, Biggie,” Hesh snapped, and Biggie slid back against the wall, the bounce of adrenaline draining out of him in an instant. Hesh turned to John, glaring.

“I had to use the head,” John said before Hesh could ask him anything. His attempt at a nonchalant shrug was halted by the two guards clamping hands on his shoulders, and Thug Two readjusting his grip until he had a meaty fist wrapped around the bruise on John’s forearm. John winced, and the dead muscle began to tingle as feeling flooded back into the limb.

“Where’s Tayven?” Hesh barked.

“Sleeping.”

Hesh threw the door open and stepped into Tayven’s room. Light flooded into the hallway as the lantern was once again turned on. There was a pause, and then John heard Hesh cry out in surprise.

He was back out into hallway, inches from John’s face, within seconds. “You cut his hair,” Hesh snarled.

John leaned back from the spit flying from Hesh mouth. “He was filthy. I cleaned him.”

“You cut his hair!”

“I got rid of the bugs.”

Hesh jumped forward, grabbing John by the throat. “He’s naked! What did you do to him?”

“I cleaned him,” John choked out. “He’s sick. He needed basic hygiene—”

Hesh screamed, pushing his hand against John’s throat and cutting off John’s air supply. John let his legs fold, giving into the pressure, and Thug One and Thug Two’s grasp on his arms slipped. He fell backward, Hesh landing on top of him.

His head smacked against the floor, but he’d been half-prepared for the fall and managed to absorb most of the impact with his back and arms. He grabbed at Hesh’s hand around his throat now, squirming.

“I’m trying… to help… him…,” he wheezed out.

Hesh’s face was red, going on purple. Or maybe that was just the lack of blood and oxygen making it to John’s brain. He tucked a knee up between himself and Hesh and pushed out, finally dislodging the other man’s grip on his neck. Hesh rolled to the side, stood up, then kicked a hole into the wall with a scream. John turned away from him, sucking in precious oxygen.

“Get him up.”

John had let his eyes slide closed for a moment, but they flew open as he was jerked upright. Hesh paced in front of him, his movements jerky and his breaths coming out in fast pants.

“He was covered in bugs,” John said. His voice was raspy and low, and he swallowed what little spit he had in his mouth to work some moisture into his throat. “That’s probably the reason he’s sick in the first place. If he can’t clean himself, then you have to do it for him.”

“I ain’t no giver,” Hesh snarled.

“No, you’re his brother, and he needs you to take care of him.”

“That’s why we got you.”

Hesh turned, grabbing the rifle out of Ulam’s hands and John’s breath caught in his throat. Was he going to shoot him? After all the trouble they’d gone through to get him here in the first place, they wouldn’t just shoot him, would they?

“He still needs help. He’s still sick.”

Hesh froze, glaring at John. Slowly, the anger leaked out of his expression, replaced with something almost like glee. Maniacal, like he was about to do something he was really looking forward to doing.

He flipped the rifle around and swung it like a club, an arc somewhere in between a baseball swing and a golf swing. John flinched, stumbling backward, but the thugs kept him still enough for the end of the rifle to crack against the side of his knee.

He screamed, jerking in his captors’ arms. They let him go, and he fell hard to the floor, curling up instantly around his throbbing leg. Arms dug at him, stretching him out, and he looked up again just as Hesh swung the rifle again. This time, he felt his knee dislocate, sliding sideways against the impact. John arched, throwing his head back as his vision whited out in pain. His entire leg was on fire, and he was only dimly aware of hands dragging him into the brighter lights of Tayven’s room.

They dropped him in the chair, causing his injured leg to bend just a little. The patella slipped back into place with a sickening crunching, sending another jolt of pain through his leg and up into his throat. John leaned forward, feeling his stomach flip with nausea, and grit his teeth against the urge to throw up.

A hand dug into his hair, jerking his head up. “Now maybe you won’t go wandering down the hall,” Hesh smiled, but his eyes still simmered with anger. “My brother dies, you die,” he hissed in John’s ear. He flung his head back and stomped out of the room, and John was left alone with Tayven once again.

* * *

His knee swelled up like a watermelon almost as soon as it relocated. John stretched out in the chair, leaning carefully toward the medic bag. The urge to throw up had subsided, but it wasn’t gone completely. Every little flinch and jostle sent stabbing pain through his leg, and by the time he’d managed to pull a leg splint out of the bag, his face was slick with sweat. A few agonizing minutes later, he had propped his leg up on the bed and stabilized it with the brace.

He leaned back, letting the air out of his lungs with an exhausted huff. He needed to sleep—not long, but maybe an hour or two. The incessant throbbing wasn’t going to let him drift off for even a few minutes, however. He dug through the bag again in search of the strongest Ibuprofen he could find and almost cried in relief when he uncovered a couple of chemical ice packs instead.

He crunched one of them in his hands, feeling the pack go ice cold, then went through the painful process of loosening the brace again and shoving the ice pack against the inflamed joint. By the time he had tied everything back up again, the pain had dulled enough that it didn’t take his breath away every time it moved. He found a bottle of Ibuprofen and downed the pills quickly.

His arm was badly bruised, but as far as he could tell, nothing was broken. He debated using the other ice pack on the black and blue welt covering half his forearm, but decided against it in the end. He’d need to ice his knee again later. He glanced over at Tayven, but the kid’s condition hadn’t changed. He’d have to change out the IV bag soon, and he thought of the syringes of antibiotics.

Should he give him another one? John blinked, rubbing at the dull ache in his head. He couldn’t remember, but he had Paulsen’s manual. Hopefully, it had something in there about how often to give antibiotics. Remembering the chart he’d started on Tayven, he fished it out of his pocket and smoothed it out, then set it on top of the bag.

Tayven was… well, not _okay,_ but good enough for the moment. John’s leg and arm were about as okay as they were going to get without more advanced painkillers and medical help. He let himself sink back in the chair, his eyes sliding closed almost against his will. Just a few minutes. He just needed a few minutes…

He woke slowly, his head pounding. It took a monumental effort to open his eyes and he winced at the lamp he’d left on. His mouth was dry and he smacked his lips as he attempted to work some moisture into his throat. He’d spotted a few water bottles in the bag and he opened one now, forcing himself to drink slowly. He also downed a few more Ibuprofen and powerbars, and a few minutes later, the ache behind his eyes released its hold on him.

His leg was hot to the touch and still swollen. The ice pack had lost most of its cold and now felt soft and mushy under the brace, but it was still cool enough and he had no desire to move it at the moment. With a grunt, he sat up, then used his arms to slide from the chair to the bed. Tayven was still asleep, but his skin had gained color, his cheeks a bright pink.

“’Morning, kid,” John muttered, glancing at his watch. 5:40 a.m. “Very early morning.” With a sigh, he ran through his checks, updating his chart. He checked the heart and lungs again, and frowned at the readout on the thermometer when he saw the temperature. Tayven was just as feverish as he had been the night before.

He scanned through the manual and slammed it shut in frustration when he couldn’t find exactly what he was looking for. He needed a chapter on Tayven, with step-by-step guidelines on what to do and when to do it. The IV bag was out, so he switched it for a new one. By the time he was done with that, he’d opted to go ahead with more antibiotics. He’d had to drop his injured leg to the floor to sit on the bed, and he could feel a hot throbbing picking up in his knee. Once he was back in the chair with his leg propped up, he wouldn’t be moving from that position again for a while. Hesh had certainly found a way to keep him from trying to escape.

With a sigh, John decided to check Tayven over again for any bugs that might have escaped him the night before. It took only a few minutes, but he seemed clean enough. John examined the larger sores on the skin next, reapplied the antibiotic cream, then re-bandaged them with a scowl. At the risk of sounding like McKay, he was not cut out for this medical stuff.

It was as he was pressing a band-aid over a small, inflamed cut on Tayven’s shoulder that the boy flinched and his brow pulled down in a furrow. John froze, and a second later Tayven turned his head away from him. He sighed, a soft hoarse sound and flailed his arm, but his eyes stayed stubbornly shut.

John grabbed the small hand. “Tayven?”

The boy winced, curling his fingers to grip John’s thumb.

“Hey, buddy? Come on, wake up.”

He heard Beckett’s voice again, echoing in his own words. How many times had Carson forced him to wake up and open his eyes when all John had wanted was sleep, escape whatever pain or illness was afflicting him at that time?

“I know you don’t want to wake up, or open your eyes, but I really need to see that you’re getting better. Just for a second.”

Tayven sighed and settled back into the bed, his grip on John’s hand loosening. He was asleep again.

“Yeah, alright. Maybe later,” he whispered. He brushed his fingers against the boy’s forehead.

The skin was still hot. He’d pulled the emergency blanket over Tayven down to his waist, but nothing else he’d done was cooling the kid off. He closed his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he thought through his options.

Water. Water was the best bet. He stared at the closed door and realized he would have to get up and walk across the room to get anyone’s attention. He glanced down at Tayven again and shook his head. He needed water.

He braced himself as much as he could, then stood up using the dresser to support most of his weight. It rocked precariously, but he moved slowly. The pain in his knee doubled, sending bolts up and down the limb.

“Damn it, Hesh,” he muttered. He moved about three feet, one hand still on the corner of the dresser, but he was reluctant to let go of the furniture completely. The door was still another five feet away, but this would have to do.

“Hey! Guards!”

After his last trip out, he imagined Hesh had stuck someone on his door even after he’d disabled John’s mobility. He smiled when he heard footsteps scrape against the floor in front of him, grimly satisfied at having worked out the scenario. The door flung open, and a young man poked his head in the room, dark circles ringing his eyes. It wasn’t anyone John had seen yet, making him wonder how big Hesh’s gang was. This guy looked a little younger than even Biggie, and a little more on the malnourished side.

“I need water.”

When the guard continued to stare at John without reacting, John pointed a thumb at Tayven behind him. “For the kid. Either get me a bucket of water—cold this time—or go fetch your boss, Hesh.”

The kid closed the door without responding and John sighed. There wasn’t much more he could do and still hold onto the dresser. He decided to give them a few minutes to get his bucket of water first. Very slowly, he turned himself around and hobbled back to the bed, barely catching himself from a completely collapse. The bruise on his arm was aching but better than it had been the night before—definitely not broken. His leg, on the other hand, was screaming at the forced movement and the little bit of weight he’d exerted on it.

He grabbed the medic bag and pulled it closer to him, digging out more Ibuprofen and swallowing them dry. Now would be a good time to take inventory. The bag was big and had been packed with enough stuff that it was a small miracle the zipper and seams hadn’t popped, but it wasn’t Mary Poppins’ magical suitcase. There were limits to his supplies, something he should have paid more attention to before.

He dug through the bag now. It had been somewhat in order when he’d first opened it, but now it was a mess from his rummaging, stuff spilling out over the top. He knew there was a collapsible stretcher in a separate pocket along the bottom of the bag, but he left that alone for now. He spread the rest of the items out around Tayven’s sleeping form, separating them into piles that kind of made sense. He had two more water bottles and nine powerbars in one pile, and a second IV kit, two more saline bags, and a pile of needles and tubes in another. He left the various bandages, wraps, and braces in the bag, but pulled out all the medicines—the Ibuprofen and antibiotics included—and set them off to the side.

He had a dozen more emergency blankets, still packaged in two-inch squares, and at least that many pairs of gloves. One more chemical ice pack, tape, alcohol wipes, safety pins, cotton balls, another tube of antibiotic cream that he tossed into the medicine pile, eye patch, more tape, a pair of scissors, a set of small scalpel knives—minus the one he’d lost during the night—a dozen individual packs of powdered soap, stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, a tube of anti-itch cream—

“Jackpot,” he said, pulling out a small bottle of antibacterial hand lotion and a three-pack of washcloths. “Could have used this last night.”

He continued digging, finding another pair of scissors, a chest tube kit, empty saline bags, a— _Holy shit!_ —small bone saw, a few suture kits, and a couple dozen small packs of nutrition powder that could be mixed into food or water and that might help Tayven later if John could get him to eat or drink. He ducked his head into the bag again and came up laughing a second later holding a box of condoms and a pregnancy kit.

“Seriously, Paulsen? For a combat medkit?”

John pulled out an endotracheal tube next, then a face mask and the grin on his face vanished, replaced with a grimace. “I hope for your sake I don’t have to use these, kid.” He tossed them toward the head of the bed and cringed when the edge of the mask smacked against the boy’s head.

“Damn, sorry,” he muttered, leaning forward to move it away from him.

As he did so, Tayven’s eyes fluttered open. John glanced at the stuff surrounding the kid, not sure if he should try to quickly shove it back into the bag or if that movement would startle the boy. John was a complete stranger to a kid who’d grown up in a very dangerous world, and he had no idea how the boy was going to react.

“Hey,” he whispered, opting to stay as still as possible. He leaned back, trying to look as unimposing and unthreatening as possible.

Tayven’s gaze was glassy and unfocused. He blinked up at the ceiling a few times but still seemed unaware of John’s presence.

“Tayven?” John spoke a little louder, and the boy’s gaze drifted toward him.

His eyes widened in surprise, and his arms flailed as he panicked. His chest began to heave up and down, and spit dribbled out of the side of his mouth. Beneath the rattling breaths, John could hear a hoarse, high-pitched whimper. Tayven was in a full panic but too sick and weak to do anything but writhe and moan.

“It’s okay,” John said, keeping his voice low and his hands held up. “I won’t hurt you. I’m a… a giver.” He had no clue whether Tayven was even hearing him. He reached out with one hand to grab the arm with the IV needle in it. The boy reacted instantly, letting out a strangled cry before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he went limp.

“Oh, shit,” John breathed, lunging forward, the pain in his own knee all but forgotten. He dug his fingers into the boy’s neck, feeling his own heart pounding in his chest. The rapid pulse against his fingertips gave him only a small bit of comfort. Tayven was still breathing heavily, although it was slowing to a more normal pace, but John swore he could hear the beginnings of a wheeze at the end of each exhale.

He repacked the medic bag quickly in a haphazard order, but he knew what he had now, and he could reach whatever he was looking for quickly enough. He kept the stethoscope out, pressing the end piece to Tayven’s chest. The boy’s breathing sounded worse, heavier and more congested, and John’s heart sank.

“Hang in there, kid,” he muttered, folding up the stethoscope and scribbling the latest down on Tayven’s chart.

Heavy footsteps pounded outside the door—a lot of them—and John looked up in surprise. He’d half forgotten his demand for water. Maybe the young guard had come through for him after all. He braced himself and shoved the piece of paper into his pocket, wincing when he inadvertently tried to bend his injured knee, and was staring at the door when it flew open.

Hesh entered first, much to John’s surprise. The gang leader glared at John then shifted his gaze over to Tayven behind him.

“How is he?” he demanded.

“A little better,” John answered evenly, “but still sick. Very sick.”

The young guard from earlier walked in behind Hesh, carrying a bucket of water that sloshed as he moved. He slid past Hesh and set it down next to John’s feet, then backed out of the room without looking at any of them.

Hesh said nothing, so John leaned forward and moved the bucket over to the side of the bed where it was easier for him to reach. He turned to the bag and pulled out the pack of washcloths, ripping the plastic and dropping one cloth into the water before returning the rest to the bag. He glanced at Hesh and noticed how intently the young man was watching him.

He was a giver. Hesh had to continue to believe that. Stifling a sigh, John wrung out the wet cloth and spread it over Tayven’s forehead.

“Fever?” Hesh asked.

“Yeah.”

“How bad?”

“Bad, Hesh. He may need more help than I can give him here.”

Hesh’s eyes narrowed and he clamped his jaw shut. He studied Tayven for a moment longer then jerked his head at John. “Grab your supplies. You’re needed down the hall.”

John snorted, laughing at the idea that he could just jump up with a heavy medic bag and follow Hesh wherever the young gang leader commanded. Hesh’s face flushed red, and John clamped his jaw shut at the anger flaring in the other man’s eyes. He waved a hand at his knee.

“Remember this, Hesh? I can’t walk, let alone carry a bag with me.”

The muscles in Hesh’s jaw flexed as he stared John down, but he said nothing. A second later, he marched out of the room and John let the breath he’d been holding whoosh out of him. He was sure Hesh had been ready to attack him again. Shouts and stomping feet brought his attention back to the open door and hallway, and he bit back a sigh when Hesh reappeared with the new guard—Water Boy—Thug One, and Thug Two.

“Grab the bag,” Hesh ordered. Water Boy jumped forward.

“Hey! What the hell?” John cried out, lunging for the bag. For a split second, he forgot his busted knee and tried to jump to his feet. Pain erupted through his limb and he grit his teeth against the urge to scream hysterically as he collapsed back toward the bed.

Thug One and Thug Two moved quickly, grabbing onto his arms and yanking him upright. John grabbed onto their shoulders, letting them hold most of his weight as he desperately tried to douse the flames in his knee. He breathed heavily through his mouth, letting his eyes close and his head fall forward.

“Bring him.”

Hesh’s voice cut through the haze and John looked up just as his thug friends started to move.

“Where are we going?”

“You talk too much, giver.”

John groaned when he stepped forward and attempted to put some weight on his injured leg, and the thugs on either side of him tightened their grips. There was no way he was walking on his own, and he resigned himself to leaning on them, using them as crutches as he slowly moved forward.

“What about Tayven?”

Hesh paused, glancing back at the boy on the bed. “He’s strong. You won’t be gone long.”

Thug One and Thug Two moved forward again, dragging John out of the room and down the hallway. They moved slowly enough and seemed willing to take as much weight as John was putting on them, but going for a little walk was the last thing John needed at the moment. His leg swung slightly as he hobbled forward, stretching abused muscles and ligaments under the swollen joint. Sweat broke out across his forehead, dripping down the side of his face and neck.

When they hit the stairs, John groaned out loud, earning a glare from Hesh. The young guard moved ahead of them with the medic bag, bouncing down the stairs as if the bag were empty. The thugs took the stairs slowly, careful with their charge, and by the time they’d descended the first half flight, they were almost carrying John completely.

Windows facing the street appeared at each landing, and John strained to catch a glimpse outside. It was light out, the pale brightness of morning. As they rounded the corner and headed down the next flight, John glanced over at his watch. His men would be out in force now, searching for him. Maybe even scouring the area with the jumpers. If they went outside at all, he had to find a way to leave a sign of where he was being held captive. This could all be over with in a few hours.

His hopes were dashed a minute later when Hesh signaled them out of the stairwell and into the hallway. They had only gone down two flights, which meant they were still three flights up. The murmur of babbling voices floated down the hall and John forced himself to ignore his leg and look around. Water Boy had moved ahead of them and he flung a door open halfway down the corridor. The sound of people—a lot of people—doubled, and John was dragged quickly to the new room.

It was a large room, filled with random beds, chairs, and sofas. A group of young men sat or lay on the scattered furniture, but they grew quiet as John and Hesh entered. John’s thug friends dragged him over to a wooden chair and dropped him, and John grit his teeth against the sudden urge to scream.

“Line up,” Hesh ordered. “More serious first.”

John blinked back tears of pain to focus on the people in the room. They were all young men, ranging in age from early teens to maybe mid-twenties. They looked rough and dirty, more than half them visibly bruised or beaten.

Hesh left without waiting for anyone’s response. Water Boy dropped the bag at John’s feet, then bounced out of the room after the gang leader. Thugs One and Two stood on either side of the door, back on guard duty. The rest of the room began silently forming a line in front of John. The boy in front of him was about eighteen and holding a bloody bandage to his forehead.

“What’s going on?” John asked, glancing around the room. His heart was pounding. He had an inkling of what Hesh intended, but he did not like where this was going.

“Hesh said you were a giver,” a voice called out.

John glanced down the line, looking unsuccessfully for whoever had spoken. The boy in front of him swayed, and John snapped his head back. The kid’s eyes were glassy, his face pale and sweaty. He needed to sit down, fast.

“I need a bed or sofa,” John called out. The large room was filled with scattered furniture. If John was going to treat these guys, they’d have to sit down for him to do it. No way in hell was he going to be able to stand up and come to them.

Whispers broke out, then a minute later, a few of the boys near the back of the line carried a narrow, metal bed frame and thin mattress to John’s side, carefully sidestepping his outstretched injured leg. They shuffled back as soon as they pushed it almost up against John’s chair, retaking their position in line.

For a gang, they were remarkably quiet and well-behaved, waiting patiently in the line Hesh had ordered them to make. John signaled the bleeding boy in front of him to come forward and sit down.

The kid did, although he dropped heavily and with little coordination onto the side of the bed. He stared forward with dull eyes, hardly reacting when John pulled the bloody rag away from his head and turned the kid’s face toward him.

“What happened?”

The kid didn’t answer, just blinked, then frowned.

“Hey,” John said, snapping his fingers. “What happened to you?”

“Fight with Arader’s gang,” the next kid in line said. John looked up to see a boy no older than fifteen pressing his hand against a blood-soaked sleeve.

“Arader?” John leaned over, digging into his bag as he spoke, not quite sure what he was looking for. A bandage? He glanced up at the kid sitting next to him and saw the deep cut on his forehead. Definitely a bandage. Maybe even stitches. He stifled a sigh as he pulled out a handful of supplies and dumped them on the bed next to him for easier access.

“Arader—he runs the gangs all over the southeast blocks. They been trying to move in on our blocks,” the boy with the arm wound explained.

“So you fought them,” John finished.

“We always fight them, but they ran at us hard this morning.”

“We clubbed them back, though,” another young man called out, and he was answered by a chorus of cheers and the thumping of fists against backs.

John cleaned the head wound, grimacing when he saw it was a deep scrape and not a cut. Not something he could easily stitch up—not at his skill level, anyway. He made the kid follow his finger with his eyes, reminded again of the number of times he’d been on the receiving end of this treatment. He owed the medical staff a huge thank you of some kind when he got home.

The boy’s eyes jerked as they attempted to track his finger. When John asked him if he had a headache, he nodded stiffly. John called to one of the boys who had carried the bed over and, after a quick check to see that he was suffering from nothing more than a few bruises, tasked him with looking over his first patient.

“Keep an eye on him until tomorrow morning. Make him rest and drink plenty of fluids—water.”

The boy swallowed and nodded his head, then helped the first boy to his feet and led him to the other side of the room. John watched them go for a few seconds, his stomach twisting in on itself. If the kid had a concussion, given enough rest, maybe he’d heal up just fine. If it turned worse? There wasn’t much John could do about that, no matter how well stocked Paulsen’s bag was.

The second boy in line was easing himself onto the bed and John stifled a sigh. “Hurt anywhere else besides your arm?”

“No. Cut deep, though.”

“Yeah, I can tell. What’s your name?”

“Copes.”

“Copes,” John repeated. He couldn’t see much through the rip in the sleeve and ended up having the kid pull his shirt off. The cut was very deep, thick blood still welling out of it and running down the skin. John felt his gut clench. He wasn’t normally skittish at the sight of blood, but this needed stitches. Copes looked tough as hell, but he turned his head away at the sight of the suture kit John produced, paling noticeably.

“This is going to hurt,” John said.

“I know,” Copes whispered.

To the kid’s credit, he hardly made a sound as John stitched the wound then covered it. John, on the other hand, could feel his jaw throbbing from clenching his teeth so tightly. He was also feeling slightly nauseous, which could have been caused by the blood, the sight of the needle weaving through the skin, the stench of body odor from Copes that was only noticeable once John leaned close to work, or some combination of all of the above. The throb in his knee wasn’t helping matters, and neither was the fact that he was hungry, thirsty, and stressed.

“Keep it as clean as you can,” John told him.

Copes deflated visibly, sagging on the edge of the bed. “Thanks,” he breathed out.

John nodded, not sure he deserved this kid’s thanks. He turned his attention over to the next boy but stopped when Copes grabbed his arm.

“Think when you’re done here, you can come over to my place?”

“What?” John asked, baffled.

“My mom, she gets these shooting pains in her legs, so bad she can hardly walk. Can you help her?”

“Um… I…”

“My sister,” the next boy in line called out, moving forward. “My sister—she’s pregnant, but she’s had really bad stomach cramps in the last week. It’s too soon for the baby to come. She’s afraid she’ll have it too early. If she starts bleeding…”

John opened his mouth to respond then glanced behind the boy with the sick sister to see the boys behind him watching John intently. The tough exteriors they usually wore around each other had dropped, and they stared at John with open desperation. John snapped his mouth shut, and held up a hand when more of the boys moved forward.

“I can try to help later, but right now, Hesh wants me to look at you guys. We’ll talk about your families later.”

Most of their expressions fell, crestfallen, but a few nodded back at him. John could see the hope in their eyes. He imagined that every single guy in the room had a family member—a brother or sister or parent—worse off than them, all in need of basic medical care.

Copes stood, shuffling off to the side and making room for the next kid. As John moved through the line, the injuries became less serious, devolving into shallow cuts and scrapes and bruises. He couldn’t help but look at them and see kids, despite the evidence he was treating that they weren’t just playing around outside. The injuries from that morning’s fight were relatively minor, but these kids were playing for keeps. He shivered at the thought that next time, he might be asked to do much more than bandage a few cuts. When he was finished, he’d used half of the bandages in the medic bag and almost all of the antibiotic cream. He zipped it up and signaled to the thugs guards that he was done.

“You gonna come to my house now?” Copes asked, wandering over to him and looking suddenly timid. “My ma… she’s been bad lately.”

“Hesh wants him upstairs,” Thug One answered, before John had time to come up with an excuse.

Thug Two grabbed the medical duffel and slung it over his shoulder, then pulled John to his feet. A few minutes later, John’s two guards where on either side of him, taking most of his weight as they shuffled down the hall and back to the staircase. They moved slowly, letting John get his good leg under him before each step.

“That happen often?” John asked, breaking the silence as they started the arduous climb up the stairs.

“What?” Thug Two asked.

“Gang fights, with that Arader guy.”

Thug Two nodded, his greasy blond hair falling over his face. “All the time now,” he muttered.

* * *

 **Part 3**

Tayven was awake when John returned to the room, with Hesh sitting next to him and trying to coax him into drinking a glass of water. Thugs One and Two supported John about three feet into the room then let him go and retreated, leaving John to hobble the rest of the way to the armchair at the foot of the bed.

His head was pounding, and flames licked up and down his leg with every ounce of weight he was forced to put on it. By the time he reached the chair, he was panting. He eased himself into the chair, forcing shaking arms to lower himself in a controlled collapse. He used his hands to lift the dead weight of his leg and straighten it out as much as possible.

“He won’t drink the water.” Hesh’s voice cut through the thrumming roar in John’s head, but John refused to look up at him. He hunched over, holding his head in his hands and breathing slowly through the pain bursting from his knee.

“I said he won’t drink,” Hesh snarled, standing and slamming his glass on the dresser next to the bed.

“Just a second,” John whispered. He really needed to lie down for a few minutes. No, he needed to drink some water and eat a full meal. Then he needed to lie down.

He also needed to be rescued. He’d take that before the eating, drinking, and lying down—

“You’re here to fix my brother!”

John looked up, intent on screaming back at the gang leader as his patience finally snapped out of existence, but instead he caught a blur of movement as Hesh swung his leg backward then forward, the toe of his boot catching John directly on his injured knee.

John screamed, throwing his head back into the chair. The pain was all encompassing, spreading up his leg to wrap around his chest and stomach, squeezing the air out of him. He gasped and leaned forward, reaching out instinctively for the raw, throbbing burn, the center of the pain. As his lungs refilled, he wanted to scream again, but he clenched his jaw shut to cut it off. A moaning whimper deep in the back of his throat finally clawed its way out, and he pushed back into the chair again, straightening out.

He wanted to curl up around the injured knee, protect it from any more of Hesh’s abuse, but he couldn’t do that and keep the leg straight—the least painful position. He was reduced to squirming and writhing in the armchair. He bent forward again, banging his forehead against the armrest as another cry of pain whimpered out of him. He realized tears were now streaking down his cheeks, and he rubbed a hand over his face to wipe them away.

 _Breathe, just breathe. You can do this, John. Breathe through the pain._ His heart pounded in his chest, but gradually, the fireball in his knee pulled back into a more manageable, raw screaming agony.

 _You are in serious shit here, my friend._

“Stop crying!”

John pushed himself up slowly, feeling wrung out and sick, and was surprised to see the ‘stop crying’ comment was not directed at him, but at Tayven.

The boy was still lying limp on the bed, still pale and sickly. He was staring up at Hesh with wide eyes though, and tears were leaking out of the corners of his eyes and into his clipped hair. John saw the boy bite his lip and screw up his face, maybe in an attempt to stop, but the tears continued to flow.

Hesh opened his mouth to say something else, but John beat him to it.

“Back off, Hesh,” he growled.

Hesh spun around, raising his fist. Anger warred across the young man’s face, carving deep lines into his brow and around his mouth. The scar near his eye blanched into a stark, jagged white line. John raised his chin, maintaining eye contact and trying to look as tough and intimidating as possible confined to the armchair.

“Don’t tell me what to do, giver.”

“That’s right, Hesh. I’m the giver. You brought me here to help your brother. That’s what I’m doing. You want me to help him, you leave. Right now.”

Hesh’s face had flushed red, almost purple, and John could see the muscles in his cheeks twitching. His arm was shaking as well, like the thread of control holding back his fist was stretched almost to breaking point. Any second now, Hesh would lose the minute handle he had on his emotions and unleash his fury on John, and there would be little John could do to protect himself sitting in the chair with a screwed-up knee.

Tayven sniffed, the sound just barely audible in the dead silence of the room, but Hesh blinked in response. He held John’s gaze for another second, but John saw the red of his face pull back, the skin returning to a more normal tone. He lowered his arm slowly, but kept his hand curled into a fist.

“Fix him,” he hissed, then he spun on his heel and stomped out of the room. Thug Two had dropped John’s medical bag near the door, and Hesh stopped in front of it. He scooped down and picked it up, then hurled it at John’s head.

John caught the bag, wincing when the edge hit him in the cheek. He’d almost forgotten the collapsible stretcher was in the bottom pocket, but he was painfully reminded of it now. Hesh slammed the door shut, rattling the lamp and the dresser on which it sat, and John heaved the bag across his body to set it down on the mattress, at Tayven’s feet.

Tayven was watching him now, and he hadn’t lost the wide-eyed look of panic. He was shaking as well. With a groan, John pushed himself up out of the chair and slid over to the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. He moved his leg again, straightening it out and wincing at the bite of pain that caused.

The water bucket was still sitting next to the bed. John looked around for the washcloth and saw it wadded up in a ball above Tayven’s head. He scooted closer to the boy, but froze when the kid flinched and tried to squirm away from him.

“Hey, it’s okay, kid—Tayven,” John said, keeping his voice low and calm. “I’m not going to hurt you. Your brother, Hesh, brought me in to help you. He said you’ve been very sick.”

Tayven continued to stare at John, but his face gradually drooped into one of sickly exhaustion as the panicked fear ran its course and oozed out of him. He had stopped crying, but his cheeks and temples were still wet where the tears had tracked back into his hair.

John leaned forward and grabbed the washcloth, then dropped it into the bucket next to him. Tayven tracked him with his eyes the entire time, wrapping his arms around his small chest. When John pressed his fingers against Tayven’s forehead and cheek, the boy tensed but didn’t cry out or try to move out of the way.

His skin was still hot, his cheeks still flushed red. John wrung out the washcloth and wiped Tayven’s face and neck, including the tear tracks. Tayven moaned and turned into the cloth, letting his eyes drift closed. John dipped the cloth in the bucket again then folded it into thirds and spread it out over the kid’s forehead. He twisted around, digging through the bag until he found the thermometer and stethoscope. The IV bag still had plenty of fluid left, and he pulled his makeshift chart out of his pocket, scanning it and glancing at his watch as he mentally calculated when he’d last given the kid an antibiotic shot. He could wait a little longer on that, he decided. The fever was the thing worrying him the most now.

“Tayven? My name is John. I’m a…” his voice faltered. _A giver._ That’s what he’d been about to say, but it was a lie. It was one thing to tell Hesh he was a giver, especially when Hesh was standing over him with a gun or bashing his knee in. His choice had been lie or be killed. But Tayven… The kid was innocent in all of this.

He shook his head. Maybe Tayven needed to believe he was a giver, too. There was a mental component to healing that John had experienced enough times in the past.

“I’m…” His voice trailed off. He couldn’t do it—couldn’t tell this boy he was something he was not. He watched the boy for any kind of reaction, but Tayven merely blinked at him. John held up the thermometer. “I need to take your temperature with this. It won’t hurt at all.”

Tayven jerked a little as John pressed the end of the thermometer into his ear, but he grew still quickly when nothing else happened. A second later, the thermometer beeped and John held it up, scowling at the numbers. The kid’s high temperature had remained the same since he’d arrived, and it was showing no signs of letting up. He tossed it back into the bag and then fitted the stethoscope to his ears. He rubbed the chest piece again with his palm, this time expecting the brushing sound that traveled up the eartubes.

“Don’t worry, kid,” he said as he pressed the end of the chestpiece against Tayven’s chest. He listened to the heart first, then the lungs. He still wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be listening for, but the sound had definitely changed. He frowned at the wheezing, congested crackling sound around the bottom of Tayven’s ribcage.

“Dammit,” he snapped.

Tayven squirmed, looking suddenly scared and John bit his lip. He glanced down at the stethoscope then back to the boy, latching onto the idea suddenly flitting through his mind. “Hey, would you like to hear your heart?”

Tayven stopped moving, and John pulled the stethoscope off. He moved slowly, holding it out to Tayven and fitting the eartubes into the boy’s ears. “You can hear your heartbeat with this,” he explained. “Have you ever heard your heartbeat?”

Tayven watched as John moved the chestpiece and pressed it against his ribs. A second later, he blinked, jerking his eyes up to John.

“Can you hear it?”

Tayven gave a small nod, and John moved the chestpiece to his own ribs, directly over his heart. “How about that? Can you hear my heart, too?”

Tayven smiled, and John felt relief flush through him at the kid’s expression. It was followed a second later by biting guilt. He was playing doctor with Tayven’s life. He didn’t have much choice in the matter, but now the kid was looking at him with total trust.

He pulled the stethoscope away and shoved it into the bag. Fever—he had to concentrate on the fever. He pulled out the other two washcloths and dropped them into the bucket of water, but as he reached down to grab them, he winced at the sharp lance of pain that shot up his leg. He should grab the new chemical ice pack and some Ibuprofen for himself, and he still hadn’t eaten or drank anything. It would be easy to lose himself in caring for Tayven, then collapse from dehydration or hunger.

“Ibuprofen!” he said out loud. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” He had the sudden urge to smack himself in the forehead. “Focus, John. Use your head,” he muttered. He dug through the bag again, pulling out the different packets of medication. One of them was a syringe of Ibuprofen, and he injected roughly half of it into Tayven’s IV.

“This should help, kiddo,” he said.

Tayven was blinking again, close to falling back asleep. John downed two Ibuprofen pills and half of a water bottle, then went through the painful process of loosening the knee brace. He was about to fit the new ice pack against his knee when he glanced over at Tayven. His knee hurt like hell and was still swollen, but it wasn’t life-threatening. The kid’s fever was. With a sigh, he covered it in bandages to mitigate the ice cold now burning through the thin plastic cover and slid it under Tayven’s upper back. He then set to work on cooling the kid down, wiping his chest down and hoping the moisture evaporating off his skin would take some of the heat with it.

Tayven moaned and grabbed on to one of John’s hands.

“I know this doesn’t feel great. Just hang in there.”

Tayven’s grip relaxed a few minutes later, his hand falling to the bed as he sank back into a deep sleep. John continued to wipe him down, pausing once to inhale a powerbar. After an hour, he checked his temperature again, and almost whooped for joy at the readout. Tayven still had a fever, but it was lower than it had been for the first time since John had arrived.

It was mid-morning now, and John was exhausted. He inched his way back along the bed and slumped into the chair. It wouldn’t be that much longer until his people found him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. If the kids he’d treated that morning were back on the street, they were bound to talk, and one of the recon team members would pick up on the chatter, then figure out they were talking about John. Tayven just had to hold on for a few more hours, and then a real doctor could step in and give him the care he needed.

* * *

John woke up abruptly to the sound of someone coughing. He sat up in the chair, stretching his neck and back and looking around. Tayven coughed again, and John launched himself out of the chair as quickly as his busted knee would allow. He rested a hand on the boy’s chest, feeling heat burning the skin.

“Shit,” he whispered. Tayven’s fever had shot up again. John glanced at his watch and saw that he’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. He injected the rest of the Ibuprofen syringe, then switched the empty IV bag to a new one. That left one bag of saline left, and then he was out of supplies. The washcloths were still wet, but warm to the touch. John rinsed them out and began the process of wiping the kid down again.

Tayven coughed and writhed as he worked, and no prodding on John’s part could draw him out of the fitful sleep. His breathing was worse as well. John could hear the wheeze now without the need for a stethoscope. He unfolded the chart from his pocket and took meticulous notes at the change in the boy’s condition, all the time wondering if it was an exercise in futility.

By mid-afternoon, Tayven’s face had grown sallow and his breaths rattled through his chest. The circles around his eyes had grown darker as well, and the fever hung on, burying itself into the boy’s body. No amount of prodding and shaking would wake the child either. John’s headache was back, a pulsing throb directly behind his eyes that almost washed out the persistent pain in his knee. John gave Tayven as much medicine as he dared, hoping that would stem the tide of the disease ravaging him, but it felt a little too much like using a piece of chewing gum to plug a hole in the Hoover Dam.

When Tayven began coughing almost continuously, John broke out the collapsible stretcher and used it to prop the boy up, but even sitting up at an angle seemed to bring little relief. Between coughing fits, his breathing became deep and slow, and his ribs rose and sank as if every square inch of his lungs were struggling to pull in oxygen.

John had done everything he knew how to do. He flipped through the first aid manual for the seven hundredth time, looking for anything that might help him, but slammed it shut in frustration and tossed it across the room. The book slammed against the wall next to the door and slid to the ground.

“Sorry, kid,” John whispered, grabbing Tayven’s limp hand. He had never felt so completely helpless in his life.

The door flipped open, and Water Boy popped his head in.

“What’s going on?”

John sighed pinching the bridge of his nose, then looking up at the guard with resignation. “Get Hesh down here. Tell him to hurry.”

Water Boy’s eyes drifted over to Tayven and widened in surprise. He nodded once, then shut the door.

This was it. When the gang leader came, and John told him there was nothing else he could do for his brother, it was over. Hesh would finally lose it completely and do to John what he’d apparently wanted to do all along. John turned suddenly to the medical bag and dug out the scalpels, slipping two of them into his pocket. He was hurt and hungry and tired, but he would not go down without a fight.

Hesh arrived within minutes with his entourage—Ulam, Biggie, and Thugs One and Two. John pushed himself out of the chair, carefully balancing on his good leg and knowing all hell was about to break loose. Tayven’s breathing was deeper, growing ever slower.

“What?” Hesh spat out as he strode into the room, and then his eyes shifted to his brother. For a moment, the years of war and survival stripped away, and John saw a desperate, scared young man about to lose his only remaining family, but then the hardness set in, his expression turning to granite.

“I’m sorry,” John started, holding his hands out. “I’ve done everything I can but I don’t know…”

Hesh spun suddenly, lashing an arm out. He caught John on the side of the head. It wasn’t a hard hit, but John’s balance was already precarious. He swayed backward, flailing as he fell over the side of the chair and crashed to the ground. His knee exploded in agony and he screamed.

“Get him out of here.”

Through the haze of pain in his leg, John heard the order and felt hands grab him and drag him roughly from the room. Thug One and Two heaved him to his feet once they were in the corridor, holding him upright as John panted against the throb in his knee. Biggie paced around them, his face pale as he glanced between John and what was happening in Tayven’s room. Ulam stood in the door frame, almost protectively, giving Hesh a moment of privacy.

The moment came quietly, what was happening in the room reflected in the corridor when Ulam flinched and Biggie froze. The thugs holding on to John’s arms tightened their grips. There was no scream from inside, no cry of pain or wail of grief from Hesh. Just silence—a vacuum after the rattling breaths and desperate coughs from before. John felt a deep pain rip across his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs.

He’d failed. He’d claimed to be a giver to save himself, and now a child was dead. The throbbing in his knee shifted to his head and he sagged into the guards’ grip. He had tried everything he knew how to do, and he could tell himself that over and over again for the rest of his life, but it hadn’t been enough.

Ulam backpedaled out of the room, and Hesh strode into the corridor. John tensed, waiting for the gang leader to fly into a rage.

“Biggie, guard Tayven’s room. Make sure no one goes in.” Hesh’s voice was eerily calm. Biggie jerked, scrambling to obey and looking terrified. Hesh pointed to John next but didn’t look at him. “Bring him to the office.”

He strode forward, leading the way. Thugs One and Two glanced at each other, then Ulam, who shrugged back. They followed Hesh, moving too fast for John’s hobbling gait. John hopped and dragged his injured leg as best he could, gritting his teeth against the urge to cry out. He felt the weight of the two scalpels in his pockets and wished he’d thought of grabbing more, but he couldn’t reach them anyway, not with the thugs holding his arms. Besides that, with his gimpy leg, he wouldn’t get very far running away.

Hesh’s office looked the same as it had the first night, except that the table full of papers had been shoved against a wall. Hesh stood near an open, glass-less window, his back to them as the thugs dragged John to the middle of the room. Behind him, Ulam came in and shut the door.

“Hesh,” John started, then stopped. What the hell was he supposed to say to the guy? _Sorry your little brother’s dead? Sorry I’m not the giver I claimed to be?_

Hesh turned slowly, his face white. “Do you know what this room is?”

John frowned at the unexpected question and shook his head.

“My father’s office. He worked here every day for sixteen years. I used to stop in and visit when I was a kid, and he’d take me down to the sweets shop on the first floor.”

“I’m sorry about your family.”

“He was killed in a bomb blast when the civil war hit the city, and then a few months later, my mother was shot in the gut. She didn’t die right away. She lived for four days, but she knew she was dying. Tayven was tiny then, barely able to walk. She begged me to take care of him, look out for him.”

The muscles in face rippled as he fought to keep his composure, and then he looked up at John, meeting his gaze. “I promised her I would protect him. I promised.” His face was gaining color again, flushing a dark red, bordering on purple. The thin scar along his temple and around his eyes was a stark white line. He held up a shaking finger, pointing at John.

“I _promised_ my mother I would take care of my brother. The last thing I ever said to her.”

Thug One tightened his grip, but Thug Two had almost let go and John let his arm drop a little closer to his side. His hand was inches away from the scalpels in the pocket, and his mind raced at his options. If he moved fast enough, maybe he could take our one of the thugs, but the others would be on him in seconds.

“My brother is dead,” Hesh whispered, and now his whole body was shaking. “ _Dead._ ”

John shook his head, the guilt in his chest spreading like ice water over his skin. “I’m sorry—”

Hesh launched himself at John, kicking out a leg and planting a foot in his stomach. John felt the hands on his arms scratch his skin as he was ripped from their grasp, and then he slammed into the wall. Light flashed across his vision as his head connected, and then he was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling in shock, his entire body numb.

“You killed him,” Hesh roared. He grabbed John by the t-shirt and threw him to the other side of the room. John rolled, moaning when his shoulder slammed into the opposite wall.

“You will pay for his death.”

The pain slammed into him then, a throbbing bruise in his stomach from Hesh’s initial kick, and static bursts along the nerves in his back and head where’d he hit the wall. Spots danced across his vision and he sucked in a deep breath, feeling a twinge of agony in his lower ribs. His knee hurt, but it was an old familiar ache compared to the new pain ripping through him now.

Hesh picked him up again, but this time he threw him against the wall next to the window, pinning him by the throat. John choked, flailing as blood and oxygen was suddenly cut off.

“I will watch every last breath you take, and then I will throw your body out into the street, to be ripped apart by dogs.”

“Hesh,” John rasped. He banged his fists against the gang leader’s arm to no avail. His head throbbed like he was hanging upside down and all the blood was rushing to his brain, but he knew it was the opposite, that Hesh’s grip was stopping the blood flow.

He choked, and Hesh pressed harder against his throat in response. Just as dark spots began to fill his vision, he felt the wall against his back shake, then the concussive blast of a nearby explosion. Ulam and the thugs ran out of the room, and Hesh spun around in confusion.

John dropped to the ground, coughing and choking and clawing at the ground as he tried to pull in desperately needed oxygen. There were shouts out in the hallway, then stampeding boots, then another, closer explosion.

 _Now!_ John thought, catching a glimpse of Hesh running out of the office. He heaved himself up to one knee, then grabbed onto the window sill. There was only one door, now open and full of panicked members of Hesh’s gang as they ran back and forth, shouting and screaming.

Hide. He had to hide. There were no closets or other exits besides the window. He heaved his weight up and over the sill before he could change his mind, hoping there would be a ledge or something that he could hold onto. His fingers tightened on the edge as his body swung out into open air, but he was still gasping for air. He pressed his head against the smooth brick wall, scrambling for a foothold almost a hundred feet above street level.

Nothing. He was hanging out of a fifth-story window with one bad leg in a splint and no traction for the other one. His fingers tingled, growing numb as he tightened his grip on the window’s edge.

“Where did he go?” Hesh’s voice roared above him. “I’m gonna kill him!”

Familiar gunfire sounded in the hallway above him and far below in the streets. P90s. John closed his eyes, willing his people to reach him soon. He dragged in another heaving breath, hearing the air wheeze past his raw throat. Footsteps pounded out of the room, then a door slammed. A moment of silence passed before wood cracked and the door crashed open.

“Nothing,” a voice called out.

Ronon.

“Ronon,” John yelled, except that his voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. He drew in a deep breath. “Ronon!”

A face suddenly appeared above him, dreadlocks falling around his shoulders.

“Sheppard!” Ronon’s eyes went wide, and he scrambled to grab John’s arms, dragging his dead weight up and back into the room. They collapsed into a pile, but John was too exhausted and in too much pain to extract himself from the tangle of limbs.

“I got Sheppard,” he roared into a radio.

John flinched, then moaned, and a moment later he felt hands rolling him onto his back and straightening out his arms and legs.

“Hey, buddy,” Ronon said, a grin splitting across his face despite the worry still present in his eyes.

John coughed, too spent to say anything. He was still having a hard time breathing, like his throat was starting to swell shut. Ronon’s smile fell as he took in John’s condition, and his face flushed with anger. “Sorry it took us so long,” he said.

John reached up, patting one of his arms. Within minutes, he saw the black boots and cargo pants of his Marines march into the room, and then they were shifting him to a stretcher, hooking up an IV, slapping an oxygen mask over his face. He managed to hold onto consciousness for the journey down the stairs and out into the street, finally letting go as he was loaded onto a waiting jumper and whisked home.

* * *

John woke up to a near painlessness and the quiet murmur of voices hovering around him. He blinked, and saw a man in scrubs snipping his dirty clothes away—a former Army medic and now a nurse on Atlantis. Carson was near his injured knee, talking to another doctor and lightly poking the swollen tissue. Another nurse with short brown hair patted his arm, and he smiled back at her, feeling a little sloppy and loose, like he just might slide off the bed into a puddle on the floor.

“Doctor Beckett,” she called out.

Carson moved to the head of the bed, looking a little fuzzy. John blinked, trying to keep it together. The bed or the floor—or maybe just him—were rolling gently, and he could almost hear the ocean waves a few hundred feet beneath him.

“John, how are you doing?”

He smiled at Carson’s question, then stopped, suddenly feeling like a grin was an inappropriate reaction. How was he feeling? He felt… floaty, fuzzy, kind of numb. Carson patted his shoulder.

“Rhetorical question. Don’t try to talk—your larynx is badly bruised.”

John blinked again, feeling a slight throbbing pressure along his windpipe, now that Carson mentioned it. His knee was ice cold and he shivered. The doctor said something else, and people moved around him. The last of his clothing was stripped away, taking with it the stench of sweat and dirt and illness. Of Tayven.

He frowned, closing his eyes. Tayven. An image of the boy lying on the bed flashed through his mind, the memory all jagged edges and hammer blows dispelling the fog around him. The numbness receded a little further, and pain buzzed through his body, like someone turning the volume up on a radio. A blanket was tucked in around him and someone—Carson maybe?—urged him to rest, assuring him that he’d feel better later.

* * *

The drugged stupor didn’t last, but John wasn’t sure he wanted the numbing feeling again. He lay in the darkened infirmary, staring at the shadows playing against the walls on the other side of the room. His knee ached, feeling hot and swollen despite the ice pack and the visible evidence that it was almost back to normal size. The nurses had come by twice already, asking if he needed anything for the pain or to help him sleep, but he’d been adamant in his refusal.

When he heard footsteps approaching, he assumed it was another nurse, and he wasn’t sure he could hold out much longer against the pain if she asked again. His knee hurt like hell without question, and his stomach was badly bruised and cramping every time he squirmed just a little bit. The infirmary staff had sworn his ribs weren’t broken—not even cracked—but it didn’t feel like that at the moment. Every twinge was a stabbing pain through his side.

His throat was the worst—it hurt to breathe, to talk, to swallow, to turn his head in any direction. The accumulated exhaustion of the last few days had taken root in his skull, pulsing in agony with every heartbeat.

“You’re not going to get much rest if you don’t take something for the pain,” Carson said, padding into the curtained area around his bed. “And without rest, you won’t heal.”

John frowned, feeling a bruise on his cheekbone pull with the motion. One more thing to add to the list.

“Are you thirsty at all? Can I get you some water?”

 _Why the hell not?_ He gave Carson a quick nod, wincing at the movement. He took the glass from the doctor a minute later, scowling at the ache in his arm as he tightened his grip on the cup. He heard Carson sigh, but he sipped slowly, letting the water trickle down the back of his throat. It was slightly less painful that way.

Carson pulled up a chair and planted himself next to him, waiting. John took another slow sip of water, but by then his hand was starting to shake and he didn’t hide his relief when the doctor took the glass from him. He scrunched back in the bed, hissing in pain. Carson was watching him, but John refused to look over. The movement hurt his neck.

Carson sighed. “The swelling in your knee is going down nicely, and there’s no indication of blood vessel or nerve damage. The ligaments, on the other hand…”

His voice trailed off, but John was in no mood for a conversation. He would worry about his knee later.

“I know you’re tired, but if you’re feeling up to it, I can give you the latest update on Lieutenant Glazner’s condition.”

That got John’s attention. He jerked, lifting his head up a little then dropping it with a groan as pain ignited down his neck and back and across his chest and stomach. _Damn._ He’d forgotten all about Glazner—and Stackhouse’s team—and he felt his cheeks burn in anger and regret.

“How…?” he croaked out, his voice nearly nonexistent.

Carson rubbed a hand over his face. “He’s alive, barely. The injuries were severe, though. I’m afraid his military career is over.”

“Will he walk?”

“Aye, most likely—with a lot of physical therapy. It was close, though. Another millimeter or two over and…” He shook his head, not finishing the sentence. “I was sorry to hear about Paulsen. He was a good man.”

“Never…saw it…coming,” John whispered. “Stackhouse?”

“They found him and his team a few hours after you were taken. They’re all fine—a little roughed up but nothing they won’t heal from after a few days. Some gang of boys was holding them captive, trying to figure out who they were and what to do with them.”

They sat in silence for a minute, and then Carson pulled out a crinkled paper and held it up in the dim light over John’s bed. “Found this in your pocket.”

John’s gaze slid to the paper, and the pain in his body crested. He closed his eyes, fighting back the onslaught.

A warm hand pressed against his arm. “These vitals were bad. There was nothing you could have done to help. I’m not even sure I could have helped with a fully stocked infirmary.”

“He was… little kid,” John choked out.

“Oh, dear Lord.”

He heard Carson lean forward, the chair creaking. A black hole of guilt opened up in John’s chest, and he felt himself sliding into it. He rubbed at the pounding headache behind his eyes.

“He was sick. His brother… wanted me… cure him.”

“John, look at me.”

He ignored the doctor, sensing more than seeing him stand and grab the railing.

“Annalise.”

John shifted his gaze over to Carson and saw the doctor staring off across the infirmary, his attention focused inward. “What?”

“Annalise—she was the first patient I ever lost. I was barely out of med school, still a new resident. I thought she was old at the time, but now… Doesn’t seem like she was very old at all.”

“What happened?”

Carson sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Came in complaining of indigestion. Turned out she was having a massive heart attack. We worked on her for hours but…”

His voice trailed off and he shook himself, drawing his attention back to John. John looked away, feeling the guilt and grief gnawing at him, the pain growing worse than any physical injury he had accrued over the last couple of days.

“I know there’s not a whole lot I can say right now that will make you feel any better, but I’ve been there, son,” Carson said, breaking the heavy silence. “I know what it feels like to lose a patient, and when it’s a child… That is infinitely harder to deal with.”

He blew out a breath. John glanced at him quickly and saw the doctor’s eyes lose focus again. He imagined a flood of memories rushing through his friend’s mind, and he jerked his gaze away, focusing on the dark shadows across the room.

“Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, it’s not enough. It hurts, but with time, it gets… easier.”

“Could never be… doctor,” John rasped out, but the black hole around him had shrunk a little as he realized this was one of the few times when someone else did understand exactly what he was feeling, exactly what he had gone through on that planet caring for Tayven.

“And I could never be the military commander of Atlantis,” Carson said, smiling slightly. “You’re in pain, John. Let me help.”

John nodded, not sure if he meant the pain of his injuries or the pain of losing a patient. Maybe he meant both. Carson pulled out a syringe and injected it, and John sighed at the relief spreading through him. He squirmed again as his eyes grew heavy.

“Rest, and if you want to talk about what happened when you’re feeling a little better, I’ll be here.”

The pain had abated enough that John rolled his head toward the doctor without a wince and gave him a short nod, a small ember of hope flaring in his chest at his friend’s words. The experience would leave scars, like all experiences, but he would heal enough to bear them.

“I know, Doc,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”

END


End file.
